Up - Hardcover

LaMarche, Jim

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0811844455 ISBN 13: 9780811844451

Publisher: Chronicle Books, 2006

Synopsis

Daniel was tired of being little. Mouse! They'd been calling him that since he was born. He hadn't used to mind it, even liked it once, but not anymore. He poked at some crackers on the table. "Someday I'll be so strong," he mumbled. "Someday . . ."

And then it happened. Something so strange, Daniel wasn't sure he could believe his eyes. One little cracker trembled for a second, then lifted up off the table. Not much. Not even an inch. Then, just as suddenly, it dropped right back down. Daniel blinked. Had that really happened? How? Had he done it?

Up is the story of an ordinary boy with an extraordinary talent, a talent no one knows about but him. Can Mouse really lift things off the ground? Or is it enough that he believes he can? Once again Jim LaMarche has mixed the magical with the everyday to create a book that stretches our imaginations and our dreams.

About this title

About the Author

Jim LaMarche has been mixing magic with the everyday since 1992, when his illustrations for Laura Krauss Melmed's The Rainbabies earned him international acclaim, winning the Prix de Bologna in 1993. He is the father of three boys and lives with his wife in Central California.

Reviews

PreSchool-Grade 3–Once again, LaMarche laces workaday reality with a little bit of magic. Daniel longs to join his father and older brother on the family fishing boat, but every day they leave him behind to help his mother instead. Between Michael's taunts and the whole family's condescending use of the pet name Mouse, Daniel finds himself in an especially defiant mood during lunch one afternoon. Someday I'll be so strong, he mutters, and, fueled by the sheer force of his will, an oyster cracker hops from the surface of the table in agreement. Delighted and surprised, the boy quietly cultivates his strange new talent, and soon he graduates from bathtub toys and fishbowls to much bigger, heavier objects. Levitation is a neat trick, but Daniel figures it's not really that useful–until the day a whale beaches itself on the shore and he gives it the boost it needs to ease back out to sea. The soft acrylics capture the low light, palpable chill, and blue-gray color scheme of Daniel's fishing village. This is an inspiring and (yes) uplifting title about pursuing one's own talents and possibilities.–Catherine Threadgill, Charleston County Public Library, SC
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

LaMarche, the illustrator of Laura Krauss Melmed's Rainbabies (1992) and other books, creates his own magical tale in this beautifully illustrated picture book. Daniel wishes he was bigger and stronger, not just a little boy left behind when his father and his older brother set out in their fishing boat. After discovering that he can lift objects upward just by concentrating, he secretly practices his new skill, gradually lifting larger and heavier things. Still, his secret power seems rather useless until the fishermen discover a beached whale, and Daniel makes it possible to save it. Children will warm to Daniel and appreciate his feelings of inadequacy, his approach to his magical power, and his final acceptance as a fisherman. Drawn in softly shaded colored pencils warmed with watercolor washes, the scenes seem to glow with their own magic. As a small boy who accomplishes a great thing, Daniel lives the dream of many young children. Carolyn Phelan
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Chronicle Books
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0811844455
• ISBN 13: 9780811844451
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 32